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2018-08-17 Caribbean-Latin America
Swamped in Inflation, Venezuela Will Cut Five Zeros from Currency
It's JUST.THAT.EASY.
[NYT via WRAL.com] Faced with nearly incomprehensible inflation ‐ 32,714 percent as of Wednesday ‐ Venezuelan officials thought they had a solution: They changed the color of the bank notes and increased their denomination. Then they said they would lop off three zeros. And when that didn't seem enough, they announced they would cut off two more.

The tactics have left Venezuelans like Yosmar Nowak, the owner of a coffee shop in Caracas, convinced that there is no solution in sight and that the government cannot even bring down the price of a cup of coffee, an eye-watering 2 million bolivars.

"I imagine if we keep like this we're going to have to do the same thing in December," said Nowak, who has been forced to raise prices in her cafe at least 40 times this year.

Slashing zeros from Venezuela's inflation-cursed currency, the bolivar, is the tent-pole of a set of economic changes by President Nicolás Maduro as he tries to right his country's capsized economy. The five-digit inflation has earned Venezuela comparisons to the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany from the International Monetary Fund.

The newly minted currency, which will be known as the "sovereign bolívar," will be rolled out Monday. In addition, the president has ordered measures his United Socialist Party has been loath to consider in the past: An increase in gas prices for some drivers and a modest ease in the currency controls that have made dollars inaccessible to most Venezuelans for years.

Yet these changes haven't been enough to convince economists, who see desperation in Maduro's latest moves and view the new currency as another chapter in the decades of mismanagement that have destroyed the Venezuelan economy.

"It's a cosmetic thing that's happening, the zeros," said Steve Hanke, an applied economics professor at Johns Hopkins University who has advised governments facing hyperinflation. "It means nothing unless you change economic policy."
No shit?
Posted by Frank G 2018-08-17 00:00|| || Front Page|| [22 views ]  Top
 File under: Commies 

#1 Well.

That'll do it, then. Thanks, Nick.

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2018-08-17 05:14||   2018-08-17 05:14|| Front Page Top

#2 Every month?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2018-08-17 06:19||   2018-08-17 06:19|| Front Page Top

#3 Maybe they could go into the toilet paper business
Posted by Cheaderhead 2018-08-17 06:42||   2018-08-17 06:42|| Front Page Top

#4 Keep reading Marx, you'll never understand economics. He had Engels' money to keep him afloat.
Posted by Procopius2k 2018-08-17 07:19||   2018-08-17 07:19|| Front Page Top

#5 Inflation is always and everywhere the bill for when the government loots.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2018-08-17 07:20||   2018-08-17 07:20|| Front Page Top

#6 Have they considered taxing Social Security or raising annual premiums for MEDICARE....every year? Open borders? Sanctuary cities? Free condoms and needles? Just a couple of random suggestions.
Posted by Besoeker 2018-08-17 07:55||   2018-08-17 07:55|| Front Page Top

#7 We now have a product that is successfully created in quantity by Venezuelan socialism.
The oil company stops running, food disappears, water and electricity creep to a stop.
But by god they can produce zeroes!
Posted by ed in texas 2018-08-17 08:04||   2018-08-17 08:04|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm going to try this on my personal finances. And it works! That was so easy! I moved my debt decimal point 5 places to the left and my income 5 places to the right! Jeff Bezos, here I come!
Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839 2018-08-17 09:01||   2018-08-17 09:01|| Front Page Top

#9 Socialism only produce shortage.

Inflation is a shortage of purchasing power.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2018-08-17 09:38||   2018-08-17 09:38|| Front Page Top

#10 ...indirect taxation. Practiced daily in the Swamp and at the Fed.
Posted by Procopius2k 2018-08-17 10:07||   2018-08-17 10:07|| Front Page Top

#11 Also houses are now 7 times average wages from 2.5 times historically, yet "inflation" is low...
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2018-08-17 10:24||   2018-08-17 10:24|| Front Page Top

#12 yet "inflation" is low... "inflation" is whatever the gubmint says it is. Venezuela has nothing on the US financial authorities.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2018-08-17 13:46||   2018-08-17 13:46|| Front Page Top

#13 Too bad leaders don’t understand scientific notation. Then adjusting for inflation would be a cinch
Posted by Alaska Paul 2018-08-17 19:04||   2018-08-17 19:04|| Front Page Top

#14 Would have been just as effective to ban plastic straws instead. oh wait... nobody can afford straws...
Posted by CrazyFool 2018-08-17 20:37||   2018-08-17 20:37|| Front Page Top

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